


Missionaries' Mojave Roadtrip

by ElwritesFanworks



Series: Irradiated and Crispy [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Catholic Character, Catholic Guilt, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Feels, Having Faith, Interfaith, Internalized Homophobia, Joshua has a sexuality crisis, Kennedy O'Hara returns, M/M, Mormonism, Overthinking, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Relationship Issues, Religion, Religious Guilt, Roman Catholicism, Sexuality Crisis, Trust Issues, Worry, and a bit of a faith crisis all at once, and a i-killed-lots-of-dudes crisis, author is still trying to work through his issues, being in a relationship actually requires a lot of hard work, ghoul!Courier, it takes years to work through the issues inherent in being both religious and queer, religious!flirting, show the bae some love by offering him a preaching gig, so its rough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:36:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: Kennedy O'Hara tries to be the best boyfriend a gay Catholic ghoul can be. For his and Joshua's anniversary, he proposes the ultimate roadtrip around the Mojave: preachin', teachin', and having an all around good time. This story will cover the story of this trip - from funny, to emotional, to scary, etc.A sequel to 'With the Charity of Brotherhood.' Requires reading that fic for this one to make sense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My love story with the Mojave and Fallout: NV continues. As promised, Kennedy O'Hara has returned, this time to take his gay Christian loving on the road trip of a life time. There will be shenanigans, fluff, feels, and drama as Joshua and Ken head off into the Mojave in the hopes of spreading the Word and making people's lives better. Nothing is simple in the world of New Vegas, however, and there will be all sorts of pitfalls along the way. How much ptsd and guilt is Joshua struggling with? How do local communities take to the visiting religious gays? What's up with the Legion?

* * *

Peacefulness, in the Mojave, was too often a short-lived thing, limited to quiet moments shared between lovers, or the soft coo of an infant upon waking, or the blooming of the Broc flowers that grew in people’s gardens swaying in the rare desert breeze. Kennedy O’Hara was grateful for peace. He was grateful for the flowers, and the prospering of the orphan children, and he thanked God every day for the pleasure of waking in the company of Joshua Graham.

One year it had been – a year of victories. The Legion was not gone, but it was hobbling. Joshua insisted that God was on the side of the just and right, and O’Hara, hesitant as he was to attribute any such violence to the pure goodness of a divine hand, had to admit he felt hopeful for the first time in years. Hopeful enough, even, to plan to give his beloved the finest gift he could think of.

On the eve of their anniversary, O’Hara clung to his moments of peace, watching the gentle rise and fall of Joshua’s chest as the man slept well past sunrise. The ghoul never had the heart to wake him. Of late, Joshua slept less and less soundly. O’Hara had pressed him, and the Burned Man had admitted that only half his dreams were those of fire. He would not speak more about it – though the courier guessed the truth. He tried not to think of it – tried not to picture the water that flowed through Zion stained rust-red with the product of Joshua’s revenge. One day, he supposed, they would have to discuss it, but until then, it festered, untended, neither of them willing to be the one to dig it up.

Joshua mumbled in his sleep, his stomach growling loud enough to wake him. He grimaced, tensing completely, ready for a fight before he remembered where he was. He turned his light blue eyes on O’Hara, blinking.

“Good morning.”

He sounded almost farcically serious, even when compared to his own rather buttoned-up responses in other contexts. O’Hara chuckled, his lone eye squinting.

“Are you hungry?”

Joshua exhaled a haughty huff. O’Hara knew this to be the Burned Man’s equivalent of blushing, embarrassed by his own bodily reactions.

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, don’t be so prim. What do you say to eggs for breakfast?”

Joshua nodded, and moved to rise from the bed, but O’Hara shook his head.

“Let me fix it. You stay put – I need to talk to you and I want you thoroughly buttered up before I do.”

Joshua snorted at that, but he did as he was asked, settling back on the mattress and reaching to put on the radio.

Breakfast made in record time, O’Hara hurried back, plates in-hand. He joined Joshua on the floor to eat, wolfing down his eggs so that he could be the first to speak.

“Joshua,” he said as soon as he set his utensil down.

“Mm?”

“I have to ask you something. Well. Propose something. On account of our anniversary.”

Stormy eyes stared at him flatly.

“It’s tomorrow.”

“I know! It’s just your gift… if you want it, that is… requires a little advanced preparation.”

Joshua stilled, resting his spoon on his plate.

“I’m listening.”

O’Hara nodded, shutting his eye for courage.

“I want to go on the road with you,” he said. When he opened his eye, Joshua was visibly confused.

“On the road? Why? For that matter – how?”

“Just… let me explain it all. I got the idea a month ago when I sat in on one of your lessons for the children. You’re such a good speaker, Joshua – and I am not so shabby either. I miss writing sermons, and I’ve said before you have a silver tongue, so I started thinking. We’ve trained enough of the locals to run the school without us for a while. I found a caravan for a song and had the Followers fix it up – Arcade owed me a favour. If you’re interested, we could leave tomorrow.”

“And go where?”

“Primm. Maybe Nipton, now it’s trying to rebuild itself. Goodsprings – you’d like Goodsprings. I’m a fair shot – not as good as you, not with one bum eye, but fair. We’d be safe enough – Legion’s weak these days. We could hold our own. I could write my observations up in a sort of contemporary history encyclopedia… you could preach.”

Joshua furrowed his brow, eyes narrowing.

“You’re serious?”

“Absolutely! Think about it, Joshua – just… imagine. I thought, what’s the one thing I could give you that would make this anniversary of ours special? What better gift than to go forth into the desert and spread the good Word? We could be missionaries together, if you like. I know I would. Think of the good we could do!”

O’Hara supposed he was laying it on rather thick, but he loved Joshua best when the man was filled with zeal and piety, and he sensed the wanderlust in the other man, driving him to distraction.

“Supposing someone recognizes me? What then?”

“I asked Arcade, and he said you should be fine to go without the bandages, so long as I rub some salve on you from time to time. If anyone asked, you could say you survived any number of little known raids or attacks.”

O’Hara inched closer, hooking a finger in Joshua’s bandages and pulling them down off his chin.

“You’re such a righteous, devout man. It would be such a waste for you to keep your talents hidden. Anyway, I should like to go, to show you the world and to see old friends. There’s so much you haven’t seen, and so much you _have_ seen, under the shadow of war. You said yourself that you were born again – supposing you face the world again, pure and clean and upright.”

O’Hara’s breath was hot against Joshua’s lower lip. Just speaking of his partner’s religious vigour made him swoon a little.

“You say you’ve prepared a caravan?” Joshua said at last. O’Hara nodded.

“Everything we need I’ve packed, except your things. If you want to, we can set off tomorrow morning. Arcade and Old Ben and the others will look after thing for us here.”

Joshua considered the offer some more, before sighing.

“I will admit, your offer is tempting. I didn’t suppose such expressions of faith would exist, in the wake of our coupling – beyond what we have already, I mean.”

“We’re no greater sinners than we were in the past – Joshua, we can do great work together. Atone together. Improve together. Save souls together.”

O’Hara saw the spark light in Joshua’s eyes and grinned, for with that spark, he knew he’d won.

“Very well, then,” the Burned Man replied at last. “Since you’ve asked so nicely. I suppose you’ll be wanting an anniversary gift as well.”

“Pay me with a kiss and we’ll call it even,” the ghoul rasped cheekily, then smiled against the press of the Mormon’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's good to be home...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm supposed to be writing an essay, I wrote this instead.
> 
> Have some age-gap (of the multiple centuries variety) angst, some religious guilt/angst, some culture clash angst, some sectarian angst (because they're still working through that shit) and some general relationship angst. Because established relationships don't always mean life is easy and you can afford to stop actively working on communication and trust.
> 
> (Also: Trigger Warning for O'Hara briefly considering whether or not he considers Joshua to be a heretic. Which ultimately, he personally doesn't, but lots of Catholics would, but I don't want to take sides either way as I'm basically a lapsed Catholic/non-denominational Christian at this point and honestly I feel like the LDS get a lot of flack for 'tampering/revisionism' re: Church doctrine and yet pretty much everything we have today is basically a series of interpretations, going back further than like, the Benedictines, really, so if it's 'revisionist' so is pretty much everything because of historical shit I won't go into here. (Can you tell I considered specializing in Medieval Religious History at uni? Ultimately I didn't because I wanted to be employable outside of Academia but yeah, the interest was there. (That said, it also killed a lot of my faith so writing this is partly my way of cobbling something back together, since nothing makes you feel like an atheist faster than actually studying religious history IMO.))
> 
> Ooh! And Trigger Warning for Internalized Homophobia: that's a big one, and I almost forgot to mention it so yeah.
> 
> tl;dr, interdenominational strife always strikes me as a huge waste of energy/missing the point of Christianity in the first place. but Ken and Josh both come at this from cultural perspectives specific to their own environments, hence the dissonance between their views and mine sometimes.
> 
> tl;dr no.2: lots of feels in this one.

* * *

The caravan stood out front, laden down with supplies. Arcade and Old Ben had come by to wish them well on what Arcade was calling their ‘crazy Jesus adventure,’ but they had gone an hour prior, leaving the travelers time to ready themselves in peace. Sitting with reigns in hand, listening to the brahmin’s breathing, O’Hara supposed he was nervous, but not in a bad way.

“How do I look?”

The murmur was so soft he nearly missed it. Turning towards their front door, O’Hara’s eye widened at the sight of Joshua’s bare face and arms. With Arcade’s medical assistance, they could stand to be exposed to the air, though it wasn’t comfortable. O’Hara hadn’t expected the sight to affect him as much as it did.

Joshua’s scarred chest and arms were clothed in a freshly laundered pre-War shirt, a necktie at his throat, his face shielded by the shade of the cowboy hat O’Hara had repaired for him. His pants were pressed and his snakeskin boots were free from dust and dirt.

“You look mighty handsome.”

Joshua rolled his eyes, taking a seat next to O’Hara on the cart.

“I meant in terms of being recognized.”

O’Hara bit his lip and flicked the reigns, forcing the dutiful pack animal to move forward at a slow, even pace.

“I think you look fine,” he reiterated.

The brahmin shambled onto the main road out of Freeside, past the gates, past the ruins of suburban houses and the little makeshift farms. Joshua yawned before he could stop himself.

“You were up all night fussing – why don’t you take a nap?”

He glared at the suggestion.

“I don’t need a nap, courier, I’m not a child.”

“And I’m not a courier, anymore. Do it for me, go on. I like watching you sleep. If I need you, I’ll wake you. I promise.”

Joshua pulled his hat sullenly down over his face, stiff-limbed until sleep took him.

He really was beautiful, in his own way. O’Hara felt very blessed indeed to be able to glance sideways from time to time and see him there beside him.

Well. More than just to glance at him. O’Hara wasn’t complaining, had no right to, really. Their relationship had a rhythm to it – had seasons. There would be times of passion, of heat, and then spells of distance and cold. It made sense to the ghoul – he’d struggled for the better part of a hundred years before his sense of self had stabilized. Joshua struggled – as every Christian – with managing his mortal urges while still keeping his focus on the Lord. In and of itself, that was understandable – admirable, even, that he tried so hard to be everything for everyone – perfect partner, perfect Mormon – despite knowing he’d ultimately fail on all fronts. To strive for better was the instinct of progress, and it was needed in the wasteland. It really was. Yet… even after a year together, O’Hara suspected it bothered Joshua more than he let on.

That was the trouble with him, really. One couldn’t be sure. He was so well-armoured that he could have you thinking you’d broken through his defenses, only to come up against another wall.

The nightmares were part of it. The spells of withdrawn avoidance and chaste, reserved affection, were part of it too. All of it was the complicated, tragic, wonderful being that was Joshua Graham.

O’Hara loved it all – accepted it all, too, but it was difficult, sometimes. Not just because when he woke in the night, aroused and aching, he was forced to deal with it alone. Not just because Joshua, if he woke to O’Hara’s quiet, desperate fumbling, would shoot him a cool stare and ask if he wanted privacy. (No matter what the ghoul said, the Burned Man would get to his feet and leave.) No, it was difficult because O’Hara was sure – sure as he was that Christ died for his sins, saved his soul – that the Lord had forgiven them for taking comfort in each other in this hell on earth. That their good works far outweighed their brief dalliances. But Joshua… Joshua was not at peace. He prayed by himself, now, with the excuse that they were both far too busy with charitable works to coordinate their schedules. If O’Hara reached for him, he’d get, at best, a soft press of scarred lips and bandages against his mouth. Sometimes he’d get nothing but a brief glance of acknowledgement.

Worst was when Joshua had woken, screaming, from a terror, his body racked with shakes and tremors, and O’Hara had sat up with him, kissed him and told him he was safe. When the screaming stopped, Joshua’s eyes had shuttered clear as if they’d been windows, boarded up against a storm, and he’d nodded curtly and, awkwardly, shaken the courier’s hand.

They had not made love in just under five months.

Of their spells of chasteness, this was the longest yet – indeed, they seemed to get longer with each repetition.

 _I could do without, if only he were happy,_ the ghoul thought wistfully. _Only he’s been so solemn lately. Perhaps he misses Zion._

They’d never spoken about it – if he wanted to go back. For that matter, O’Hara didn’t even know if there was anything to go back too.

Beside him, the Mormon stirred, waking from sleep and feeling around for the bottle of Purified Water they were sharing. He drank his fill, and O’Hara watched with shameful envy as moisture dripped down the Burned Man’s chin.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Not long. A half-hour, maybe.”

Joshua nodded, and they settled into a tense silence. This, O’Hara had been afraid of. He hadn’t had time to sit and talk with Joshua like this in weeks, and now that it had come, he was utterly at a loss of what to say.

“Wagon trains,” Joshua muttered suddenly.

“What?”

“Wagon trains. My people came West in wagon trains. By other means as well… but my family, specifically, came by wagon.”

Joshua stared out at the landscape, fingers worrying the cuff of his shirt. O’Hara nodded.

“I remember. Reading about it, I mean. In school, we learned about it. American History. Brigham Young, right?”

Joshua nodded, eyes downcast.

“Strange. Not so long ago as the time of Christ, but… it feels like another world, to imagine something beyond _this._ ”

He gestured around him at the pools of radioactive sludge and the rusted out remains of an automobile. O’Hara hummed in agreement. He took for granted living in a time in which the 19th century was still accessible in museums and school curricula and sensationalist movies about the romanticized old west. Joshua had oral traditions, and what survived of Church records, and even those, now, were almost gone.

Joshua didn’t speak after that, just staring out at the scenery, fiddling with his sleeves. O’Hara itched to take his hand, but he knew better than to interrupt the man when he was lost in thought.

They made camp under the cover of a large boulder. O’Hara made sure to lay out some mines to keep any night creatures at bay, before sitting down on his bedroll with a grunt. Joshua had built a campfire – very small, so as not to attract too much attention, but they would still need to sleep in shifts until they got to safer territory.

The Mormon sat close to the flame, hunched over, his worn Bible inches from his face. O’Hara watched him squinting in the darkness, watched his mouth move silently as he read.

“You’ll ruin your eyes, reading like that,” he remarked, and Joshua’s shoulders stiffened.

“I’ll be fine.”

“What are you reading?”

“Scripture.”

“Evidently. What _part_ of Scripture?”

Joshua frowned, closing the Bible and setting it aside.

“There. No more reading after dark.”

O’Hara could almost hear the snippy ‘ _Are you happy now?’_ that he was sure Joshua was thinking.

“I… are we alright, Joshua? It’s our anniversary and you seem…”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve hardly spoken to me today. I don’t mind, exactly, but I wish I knew if you regretted –” _being with me_ “ – coming here.”

Joshua sighed heavily ran a hand over his scarred face.

“I don’t regret coming here,” he insisted. “Only, I am not in the mood to formalize the transaction.”

“Formalize the… what? What are you talking about?”

Joshua’s eyes were chips of pale ice.

“It is customary, is it not, for a couple to… fornicate on their anniversary?”

O’Hara nearly laughed at the unexpectedness of the statement, but held off when he saw the displeasure in Joshua’s face.

“Well… maybe some couples, yes. Not us. We don’t have to do anything. Not today – not ever if you don’t want to.”

_I wish I knew how to help you._

“Well, then. I’ll take first watch, if you like.”

“… okay,” the courier answered, confused, but he laid down on his bed roll obediently, saying his nightly prayers under his breath before rolling over onto his side. He could see Joshua’s back, seated some distance away, sitting ramrod straight as usual. The low fire’s heat made the man’s outline shift and fade into the surrounding night blackness.

Truth be told, O’Hara couldn’t sleep, not with so much on his mind. He speculated and worried and fretted over his partner for the better part of an hour before he noticed a change in Joshua, a shift in posture, the quiet murmuring of his nightly prayers.

They went on and on, until, belatedly, O’Hara realized the man was _weeping._

The ghoul slept fitfully after that, and when he was shaken alert and told to take up the watch, he couldn’t meet Joshua’s eyes. Instead, he waited until the other man had fallen asleep before sneaking a glance his Bible, which fell open to its most recent place of perusal. Joshua had clearly opened to this page over and over again.

 _“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies… these are the things which defile a man…_ oh, Joshua…”

How long had he been struggling on his own, too proud or too scared to turn to a friend in his time of crisis? O’Hara wished Father McGowan was with him – and then all but cursed himself for being such a fool. Just as he needed McGowan as his support, his sounding board, his confidant, so too, perhaps, did Joshua need a fellow brother in faith. Not just united in the common bonds of Christianity, but a fellow Saint. Daniel and Joshua did not see eye to eye, but surely it must have been helpful for him to have a familiar perspective close at hand.

_I lived for centuries alone. Joshua has only been without his few surviving cultural touchstones for a year, and in that time so much has changed for him. Supposing all this traveling reminds him too much of his missionary days from his younger years? He’d never tell me, even if it was killing him to be here._

“He doesn’t trust me,” O’Hara murmured. Of course, that shouldn’t have surprised him. Joshua didn’t trust anyone completely. Still, O’Hara had seen more of him than anyone else – knew more about him than most. Did that mean _nothing?_

“No, no, of course it does. You’re being selfish. Thinking of your own wants. He is here with you – he wants to do good together. He cares about your common interests.”

It was greedy, to want more than that, yet O’Hara couldn’t help himself. He was tempted, badly. Joshua was the most desirable, clever, handsome, appealing person he knew. He wanted to spend an eternity kissing his scars and helping him realize that God loved him even now – of course He did – because Joshua was beautiful, and how could God ever reject a beautiful thing of His own making?

 _He rejected Lucifer,_ an unhelpful voice prompted. O’Hara hugged his knees and grimaced.

_Joshua’s hardly as bad as that._

Still the voice persisted.

_You mean you don’t believe he killed those White Legs? You don’t believe that he followed Caesar and had his fun raping and pillaging his way across the desert? You don’t believe that he’s violent, ruthless, damaged, cruel, cold… a heretic? A sodomite? Come on, O’Hara. You don’t believe God’s forgiving either of you, do you?_

The ghoul had lived long enough to recognize the tendrils of despair creeping into his mind. Despair was the surest way to devilry he knew, so he elected to wait the emotion out. It didn’t mean it hurt any less, even if he knew it to be a falsehood, if only because Joshua, clearly, still believed at least some part of it.

 _If he’d only share this burden with me,_ the courier wished. _If he’d only let go of his hate and his guilt and let goodness into his heart._

He sat, curled up, staring at the opened page of the Book of Matthew, not reading, until the sun rose up over the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage from Matthew is Matthew 15:19 (and a tiny bit of 15:20)
> 
> Also I did loads of research on what version of the Bible Mormons used before the LDS Bible was developed and I've gone with KJV, but if I'm wrong, I apologize, as this is not my wheelhouse. And as usual, any biblical quotes from O'Hara's Bible will be Douay-Rheims for reasons I explained in 'With the Charity of Brotherhood.' Not that that's an issue yet.
> 
> Actually, I just did a lot of reading up about Mormon migration in general, so that was interesting. Not an area of History I know much about, I'll admit, but fascinating nonetheless. Hope I didn't butcher it too badly.


End file.
